Kangaroo Kronicles 24 – I Have a Dream Part II

By

“Uncle Zally” / Stu Silver

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Last week I wrote about Hurricane Irene, and received a strong response. Since God and Mother Nature have taken time off for Labor Day, I’ll return to my dream from blog #13.

 

What dream? The dream I had on the Mountaintop in Israel. In that dream, I offered “Friendly, Fun, and Affordable” at all our parks, regardless of whether they were on a lake, located next to a national park recreation area, or in the middle of Tim Buck Two. We created mobile home parks that people couldn’t wait to move into, and didn’t want to ever leave.

 

One of my former students, Brandon Bachik (who is now a colleague by virtue of the fact he is teaching his teacher) is on the same course with his first park in Texas. We compared notes, and he said his tenants don’t want live in a mobile home park, they want to live in a community. Brandon is charged up, and hyper motivated now about mobile home communities. He wants to buy every park in the U.S., and then develop new ones when he runs out of existing parks to buy.

 

Why? Because he understands when you create a great place to live for your customers, then you will have fewer vacancies, less turnover, less repairs, make more money, and even better – have pride of ownership, along with pride of cash flow.

 

And, dare I mention it, feel enriched in your soul, and leave this world a better place than you found it.

 

Okay, if I made you a believer, then you want to know:

How the heck do you do it … without spending a lot of money?

Exactly the way my friend Yussie did it, in Israel. There he is, on the left, along with his wife Aviva. I know you can’t tell from the picture, but he is a righteous man, someone I’m proud to call my friend, and I will see him next month for the High Holy Day and Festival of the Booths.

 

Listen up. The first thing to get into your head is you need help. You cannot put everything on yourself and your manager.

Few hands, lots of work. Many hands, less work.

What does that mean? In means you need volunteers. You need to have a general meeting of everyone in your park. Send around a notice to every home, and post one by the mailboxes, or in your clubhouse, if you have one. Send one notice to everyone a week before, and another one the day before the general meeting. We scheduled ours for Wednesday, 6 PM, after work.

 

You must be at the meeting, along with your manager. You will also run the meeting, and be prepared to run every meeting from then on. Once you get it going, you will only meet once a month, so it is not a big time commitment on your part.

 

At the meeting, you will explain that you want to improve the park, and turn it into a community, with the following benefits for everyone:

 

1- Better security, though Community Watch programs

2- Beautification – planting bushes and flowers on lots, and around the park entrances – with a monthly contest for best looking lot

3- Community Garden where everyone grows vegetables, etc.

4- A monthly newsletter to keep everyone informed and entertained

5- Social improvements–English classes, counselors, religious leaders

6- FUN EVENTS

A- Monthly barbecue on Saturday 2PM – 5PM

B- Community yard sale before the barbecue 8AM – 2PM

C- Bingo night (if you have a clubhouse)

D- Horseshoes, volleyball, and/or shuffleboard

E- Activities for kids

F- Bus trips together

 

7- Ask if anyone in the park has an idea for something else

 

Then, for each benefit, you are going to ask for a show of hands, who thinks this is a good idea, and would like to see it?

 

If there is no interest, move on to the next benefit. If there is good interest, you then ask for volunteers for a committee that will pitch in and make that benefit happen. Expect the barbecue to have lots of interest, especially when you chip in $100 for hot dogs, buns, and soda. Invite others to bring a covered dish.

 

Take down the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and lot numbers for each person on each committee. If there are no volunteers, then the benefit does not happen.

 

Schedule your next meeting only for the people on committees for 2 weeks later, on the same night and time as the first general meeting. The reason you are doing it 2 weeks later, and not the following month, is that you want to show you are ready, willing, and able to put each committee into action, and soon. Waiting a month is too long.

 

After the next meeting, you are going to meet with the committees on a monthly basis. Pick which Saturday of the month everyone wants to do the barbeque and yard sale. Then meet on the Wednesday night before with the committees, to recap previous activities, and plan future ones.

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Remember, you have to be at all meetings, and run the meetings. Don’t expect your manager to do it because your manager may not feel the same as you are – after all, the manager has a job, and most people are not looking for extra work without extra pay, and you are not going to pay your manager extra. You shouldn’t have to. It’s now part of the job.

 

I am going to discuss each committee in detail in the next blog, and how to conduct a meeting for maximum results, and minimum stress, but for now, please take this to heart:

 

Making my parks into communities has made me feel better about being a mobile home investor than just about anything else I have done in the 30 years I have been investing.

 

I will talk about that also, in the next blog.

 

Cheers!

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